The ISIS mobile payment system would be an alternative to Google Wallet, which first appeared 11 months ago and runs on six phones from Sprint and Virgin Mobile, as well as the Nexus 7 .

Both systems are conceived to work with traditional credit cards, where a user attaches a credit card number to a payment app. A user initiates a credit card payment over NFC by tapping an NFC-ready phone to an NFC-ready terminal. (Google has also deployed a Google Prepaid Card that users can replenish with funds for payments.)

Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner, predicted this week that even though ISIS is working with credit card providers to back mobile payments, it is possible that the consortium could eventually set up the wireless carriers to provide consumer credit. That would mean that purchases made with a smartphone could appear on a wireless customer's phone bill, not a credit card bill.

Google's -based approach is partly intended to eliminate some of the security concerns users have had with mobile payment technology. In its blog, Google noted that it has added a security feature to Google Wallet to make it possible to remotely disable a mobile wallet on a lost phone. The new Google Wallet app is available on Google Play.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at or subscribe to . His email address is .